Testimony, a Compelling Read

 Note: I’m not a relative of the author.] Jon Ward and his family has participated in or been at the heart of many of the major Christian movements since the Jesus Revolution of the 1960’s and 1970’s. As a young believer, he participated in many of the religious movements. As a journalist, he watched the rise of the Religious Right. Though he was in it or of it, he still felt like a “border-stalker”—not really part of those tribes. He struggled with the inconsistencies and the power-grabs that he walked away from the faith and politics for a while. Ward encourages us to ask questions, without fear, and wrestle with our doubts and the hypocrisies we might observe. His book encourages anyone who wonders if doubt, questions, annoyance and more at what’s happening in organized political and religious movements has love, joy, peace, patience….at its core.

Ward’s testimony here is an archetype for spiritual formation: we start out believing what our parents believe, then what the “cool kids” believe (i.e. those to whom we want to attach ourselves) and it’s not until we have a crisis of faith—doubt, disappointment—that we can truly own our own faith. This is not just a story of Jon Ward’s faith journey but he seamlessly weaves in cultural and political and religious events happening around his story.

I was intrigued at how he analyzed the rise of “nones” or “nonverts”—those who claim no religious affiliation though they once had it—since the early 1990’s. Another author’s recent book claims the rise of the “nones” happened with the fall of the Soviet Union: that Christianity and patriotism were so woven together, the fall of a great enemy meant we had no need for a religion. I believe that in the early 1990’s with the rise of marriage of conservatism and Christianity, many people were turned off of religion. George H. W. Bush’s Compassionate Conservatism fell out of favor. Anger politics and anger religion took over with the rise of Rush Limbaugh and others. Ward agrees that a new enemy was needed to replace the Soviet Union and so the zealotry turned inward to the US culture. Anger is not attractive; no one likes hanging out all the time with a friend who’s always angry. They don’t make us feel better. But it is entertainment and slowly the anger politics and anger religion seeps into our brain until that’s how we think. What’s the old adage? Show me your five closest friends and I’ll tell you what you think and how you behave. 

I listen to Jon Ward’s podcast, The Long Game, and find his in-depth interviews illuminating of the world of Washington, D.C. and beyond. His book, Testimony, is a welcome addition to the telling of his story and how we all should take politics with a grain of salt—or a whole shaker of salt in some cases—and he exhorts us to dig deeper than the Sunday School answers of how we should live in accordance with Christ’s words.